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Healing the Hemorrhages

Healing the Hemorrhages

Words of Faith 6-14-18

Dr. Jeffrey D. Hoy © 2018

Jeff.Hoy@faithfellowshipweb.com

Faith Fellowship Church - Melbourne, FL

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Luke 8:40-48

   Now when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed him, for they were all expecting him. [41] Then a man named Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, came and fell at Jesus' feet, pleading with him to come to his house [42] because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying.

   As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. [43] And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. [44] She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.

   [45] "Who touched me?" Jesus asked.

   When they all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you."

   [46] But Jesus said, "Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me."

   [47] Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. [48] Then he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace."

 

     As I studied this text, I found myself wondering what this story should mean for us. We live in a day of modern medicine. Such medical problems are usually taken care of. It is a blessing to know that this healing took place on the way. It is a blessing to know that Jesus took the time and knew that power had gone out of him. Perhaps we should just move on now. We are certainly glad this happened but let's move on to the delayed healing of Jairus' daughter that turns into a resurrection. That is the really spectacular part of the story.

     But maybe this story is not so irrelevant. Maybe our urgency to move on is because this story hits a little too close to home. If we rush on to the pretty little girl who Jesus put back into her Daddy's arms we might miss the simple fact that most of the world around us is bleeding hemorrhaging, both men and women. Perhaps this story is powerfully placed to help us see that many people "along the way" to where we are going are also weak and miserable and spiritually distant from God.

     I would like to suggest that for us we might consider that a “hemorrhage” might be thought of in a larger sense. A hemorrhage is anything that is draining the life out of you. If that is the case then there are all sorts of hemorrhages.

     There are those hemorrhages that are in the realm of the physical. As a culture we work harder than ever before to try and achieve some sense of significance and we exhaust the reserves in our lives. We are just plain tired. We are a constant quest from something more that will fill this deep emptiness. We may even go from one seminar to the next from self help idea to another. We spend money and suffer under many "doctors". Families suffer. Marriages are weakened. We are among the sickest of all generations at a time when we know more about health and medicine than ever before. The problem is we are hemorrhaging.

     A related problem in the physical realm that is epidemic in our time is the hemorrhage of finances. We live in one of the greatest times of prosperity, yet as a nation we are hurling ourselves toward as oblivion of personal and national debt. The average personal credit card debt per household is $15,654. The average household debt in the U.S., including mortgage debt, is $133,568. The current national debt is over $21 trillion.

     Sixty percent of American families annually spend more than they earn. About 60 percent of active credit card accounts are not paid off monthly. Bankruptcy is down from a peak of 1.6 million U.S. households per year to only about 600,000, or one of every 55. The personal savings rate in the United States has dropped from 8 percent in the 1980s to just under 2 percent since 2000.

     People are hemorrhaging financially as they try to meet the deep unmet needs of our souls. People attempt to pour the drug of material possessions into a huge hole in the soul. We are bleeding to death financially as a culture. One of the results is that while we live in the most prosperous of times we live at an all time low in terms of national giving to charity and ministry of the church as percentage of income.

     Even though the dollar numbers are higher, the actual percentage of income given to others is lower than at any time in the last century. We make more than our parents and grandparents but give less back.

     As a nation we are not only stealing from our future we are stealing from God. Those are just a few of the physical hemorrhages. It is no wonder that we would just as soon go on to Jairus' house.

     Tomorrow we will look more at this passage. For today, let us pray for a healing of hearts in America and a healing for the financial hemorrhaging that threatens our children and future.

 

       Lord Jesus, teach me how to trust. Teach me how to reach out to touch You as the source rather than the easy answers that encumber the future with debt. Teach us how we can trust You in the small things so that we may be entrusted for the large. In Jesus’ Name.